Wide Awake

by KB Anne

  She blushes. “I’m feeling much better. Gram worked her magic on me.”

  Gram pulls her lips in. I try to get a read on her thoughts, but she closes herself off.

  Scott approaches the sofa. “Ready to go?”

  As Ryan helps her stand, she wobbles to her feet. He guides her to the door with Scott on the other side. She seems perfectly fine now. Even her thoughts are clear—she wishes Ryan could take her home. She wishes her parents could like him as much as she does.

  Gram looks over at me. She doesn’t need to say a word either verbally or mentally. Her message is clear: We need to talk.

  I set my jaw. No one will know the truth. No one will know what happened in the attic or what happened to Kensey. Actually, I don’t even know that myself. All I know is that I will do everything within my power to keep Lizzie safe.

  32

  Frozen Pigskin

  Every Friday night from September through November, the residents of Vernal Falls shed their conservative suits and ties, restrictive machinist coveralls, housecoats, and fake pearls in exchange for Vernal Falls High School football jerseys (available for purchase at the ticket booth). They carry pom-poms and noisemakers (also available at the ticket booth) and paint their faces blue and gold (not available at the ticket booth, but your closest neighbor would be more than happy to share theirs with you).

  And if their clothing choice, cheering, and frantic sit-stand motions aren’t problematic enough, the singular focus of their minds—the excitement of a tackle, the disappointment at a missed yard, the anger at a bad call—feels like an ice pick drilling into my brain.

  A bitter wind whips across the field, providing me with additional proof that Friday night football games are grossly overrated. But here I am, with Lizzie by my side. And I suppose that counts for something—at least the Scott-Ryan duo thinks so. They’ve lit up the turf since our arrival with touchdown after touchdown. I guess they’re making up for last weekend when, according to them, they were too distracted by my absence to even complete a pass.

  Scott, Ryan, and Lizzie ganged up on me in school today. They made me promise I’d come to the game and not disappear like last Friday night. To help me keep my vow, Lizzie has refused to leave my side. She even lied to her parents and told them the Bible study group was meeting early, just so I didn’t escape.

  So I’m freezing my ass off for the sake of my friends who are obsessed with pigskin. It’s no wonder my mind drifts to last weekend. The heat from my mysterious dance partner warms me still. My gloved hand traces my lips. I felt cherished when our lips met. As opposed to the Irish ass who kissed like he was conquering something.

  “Woohoo! Go, Ryan!” Lizzie shouts, squeezing my arm. “Oh my god, oh my god, look at him … Go, Ryan! Go!” She jumps up and down, clapping and yelling. By necessity, I stand up with the rest of the crowd who are equally losing their minds over Ryan’s run. He crosses the finish line or the end zone or whatever it’s called, and Vernal Falls puts another six points on the board.

  Lizzie bounces up and down beside me. “Did you see that? Did you see that?”

  My head will explode if I don’t get out of here soon, and her enthusiasm isn’t helping the situation.

  “Are you sure you weren’t a cheerleader in a former life?”

  “I’d be a cheerleader in this one if my parents would let me.”

  My heart plummets to my stomach. “You would?” I thought we shared something more than our longtime friendship. I thought we both hated organized clubs and sports teams, and any kind of uniformity.

  “Gigi, chill. I’m not planning to try out for cheerleading—I’d just like to get into the locker room to see Ryan with his shirt off.”

  Relief passes through me. “I’m sure if you asked him he’d take it off for you.”

  “Yes, but I’m playing hard to get.”

  Her mind’s easier to read since I stole the eyeball necklace. Physically she’s made a full recovery since yesterday. Mentally, I don’t know. She’s no longer in possession of the blasted necklace or the spell book, but something lurks inside her. She’s more argumentative and opinionated. I’m not sure if that’s a residual from conjuring dark forces or from hanging out with me. In either case, it’s not an improvement.

  The cheerleaders flip one another into the air, shouting and chanting, to celebrate the touchdown. The pyramid is conspicuously missing its capstone. It’s surprising they’d try the stunt without their fearless leader. Evidently her presence isn’t as vital as she pretended it was.

  Lizzie dances to the beat of the cheer. I worry again that she’d rather be cheering with them than standing with me, but her thoughts tell me she’s just happy for Ryan.

  “Can you believe Miss Captain-of-the-Cheerleaders missed the game? Do you think she really ran off with Breas?”

  “I hold no opinion on the subject. I’d like to pretend that neither one of them ever existed, and we can continue on with our normally scheduled lives.”

  She feels bad about bringing up Breas and Kensey. She actually thinks I’m heartbroken over his disappearance. She doesn’t know about the motorcycle ride Wednesday night or what he tried to do after. I finger the mace in my pocket. It stopped his attack. If I didn’t have it, I don’t know what would have happened.

  She grabs my wrist. “What happened in the attic?”

  “Huh?”

  “The attic. What happened?”

  I swallow in preparation for the lie. “Exactly what I told Donahue. I wanted to show you my new tattoo, and he caught us.”

  She pulls in her cheeks, pursing her lips. “I don’t believe you.”

  I shrug. “Well, that’s what happened.”

  She glances from side to side to make sure no one’s listening, then she leans in to whisper. “Last night, I dreamt that Kensey was up there with me, and that we were doing a spell together.”

  It was a curse not a spell. Big difference.

  “A spell? First of all, you wouldn’t be casting spells with Kensey unless you fancied adding giant bows and high ponytails to your morning routine.”

  “What did you do with it anyway?”

  It, as in the spell book. It vanished with Kensey.

  “Gone. It belonged to Gram’s friend, and he wanted it back.”

  I wait for the fire in my throat to build, but this time it doesn’t burn like I assumed it would. Maybe the spell book did belong to Darius. It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s gone now.

  Her attention shifts back to the game. Scott throws a long pass to Ryan, and now Ryan is sprinting for another touchdown. The fans lose their minds all over again. I stand and clap, pretending to at least be interested in my best friends’ athletic pursuits, but I keep thinking about Lizzie up in the attic. She acted like she was expecting me, but it wasn’t Lizzie expecting me. It was someone else. Her mind felt ancient and calculating, like she had been waiting a very long time for me.

  Cold dread washes over me. I rub my hands up and down my arms. It’s only the temperature that’s bothering me. Nothing else. Lizzie is fine. She’s standing next to me, cheering for Ryan. I should have worn another layer. It’s my own damn fault.

  “I’m freezing. Do you want a hot chocolate?”

  She rubs her hands together. “If you wait until halftime, I’ll go down with you.”

  “I’ll get hypothermia by then. Want anything else?”

  “Sugared almonds?”

  Her request makes me smile. Sugared almonds are the primary reason I subject myself to Friday night football games, and she knows that.

  “You got it.”

  She thinks about what happened to me last weekend and still wonders what knocked me out for two days. “Make sure you come back.”

  It kills me that I can’t tell her I know what she’s thinking. If I did I’d lose her friendship for sure. There’s only so much baggage a friend should carry, and mine grossly tips the scales.

  “I will.”

  Most people would take one
look at the packed crowd and skip the snack stand, but I enjoy a challenge. Their game-focused hive mind provides me with plenty of opportunity to throw elbows into unsuspecting kidneys, kick errant legs out of the way, and stomp on fingers resting on the bleachers. When I finally manage to break free from the crowd, a face-painted mega-fan rushes at me with a foam finger pointed at my eyeballs. Left with no choice, I duck out of the way. My silver bullet key chain with my collection of padlock keys slips out of my front pocket.

  “Psycho freak!” I yell after the retreating fan.

  I pick up the key chain from the ground. I used to consider the silver bullet my good-luck charm, but it certainly hasn’t given me much luck lately. I remove my glove to feel the cold, pointed metal in my palm. It grows warm with my touch. I close my eyes to ground me to the space.

  I am here.

  This is who I am.

  When I open them, my attention shifts to the chain-link fence enclosing the football stadium. Two gold eyes stare back at me before vanishing into the darkness with a single word forming in my mind.

  “Soon.”

  33

  Campfire Stories

  Love at first bite. That’s what it is. An aphrodisiac for the taste buds. And now that I’ve tried it? I will never be the same. Life will never be the same. When paired with the primal aroma of wood smoke? Irrefutably otherworldly. The mélange will long call to me, and I will answer. I will always answer.

  “I can’t believe you’ve never had s’mores before, Gi,” Lizzie says, jerking me back to the campfire and reality. Flames dance in her eyes. It’s a small miracle that Gram covered for her even after she discovered I was experimenting with magic. My throat still burns from the aftershocks of that lie, but I would never betray my best friend. Never.

  “What can I say? I’ve lived a sheltered life.”

  “Yeah right,” Scott says.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I should have known he’d argue with me. He’s been picking more fights than usual because he suspects I’m not telling him the truth about what happened in the school attic. Which I’m not, but he doesn’t need to be a dick about it. He’s gotten worse since the rumors started that Kensey and Breas skipped town on his motorcycle.

  “Gi, we all know your gram,” Scott says, “and while I love her, she is one wacky chick, and you’ve done more …” I raise a clenched fist, “experimenting than anyone I know.”

  “I’m sorry we’re not lame-asses like your dad.”

  “My dad isn’t a lame-ass.”

  The three of us stare at him in amused disagreement.

  “The bow ties, the penny loafers, the corduroy blazer with the patches on the elbows. Scott,” Ryan says, “your dad is a lame-ass.”

  “Well, at least he leaves the house once in a while.”

  “Gram’s eighty-two years old!”

  He nods his head like one of those freaking bobbleheads. “She’s one of the healthiest inhabitants in Vernal Falls, probably in all of Pennsylvania. Dad says she’s superstitious, and that’s why she doesn’t leave her property.”

  I growl, before I remember my words. It’s always better to use words. Unless of course you’re within striking distance, which I’m not. “What does your dad know about the thought process of Gram anyway?”

  “Enough you two! You fight more than I do with my little sister, and she’s thirteen,” Ryan says.

  “Really,” Lizzie agrees. “You act like an old married couple.”

  I shoot daggers at her. Her remark is a betrayal of the lowest kind.

  “He wishes,” Ryan laughs.

  “Oh, shut up, jerk-off! We all know you want to hook up with Lizzie tonight,” Scott says. Leave it to the dodo to point out the obvious—no wonder they’re extinct.

  “Can you believe Gram actually let me come tonight?” I say.

  Scott pushes out his chest reminding me of a voodoo doll ready for a pin. “She knew you’d be one hundred percent safe with me.”

  “Safe with you? I’m the one who’s always getting you out of trouble.”

  “Oh, don’t go back to that whole ‘well incident’ again. I was eight. I’ve more than made up for it through the years. Everyone at this bonfire can agree with that fact.”

  “Still, if it wasn’t for me, we may never have found you down in that well out at the old Smith place. Just me and my sixth sense.”

  “More like sick sense. Every sick, crippled, blind, and dumb animal within a hundred-mile radius shows up at your door for you to take care of,” Ryan says. “You’re the Pied Piper of reject pets.”

  “Must be why I’m friends with you.”

  He curls up beside Lizzie. “I walked right into that one, didn’t I?”

  “Seriously, Gi, how do you know what’s wrong with them?” Lizzie says.

  I snap my stick. “I don’t know. Common sense.”

  Lizzie and Ryan have never brought up my pets before. The direction this conversation is going in is making me uncomfortable, but Lizzie’s not ready to let it go.

  “It’s way more than that. I can’t even keep a plant alive,” she says.

  “You overwater them. Let them dry out between waterings.”

  “I’m kidding, Gigi. It’s a joke.”

  I fling the stick pieces into the fire. “It’s not a very funny one.”

  After she left our house the other day, I dug up the eyeball pendant and reburied it deep in the woods behind my house. She’ll never find it, and if I have my way, no one ever will. But the thing is, even though she’s no longer possessed by whatever evil resided in the pendant, she’s changed. I don’t know if she’ll ever return to our dear, sweet Lizzie again.

  Ryan stands up, rubbing his hands together. “All right, all right, enough with the small talk, let’s get to the haunting, scary reason why people have campouts. I’ll go first.” He winks at Lizzie. A blush blooms on her cheeks.

  I know it’s selfish, but it scares me that Ryan will take Lizzie away from me. I need her. She knows me, the real me—and, dare I say, loves me anyway. She’s had boyfriends before, but this thing with Ryan feels different. The way they look at each other makes me realize that something lasting is in the making. Something substantial. Something I can never give her, and that’s my greatest regret of all.

  Ryan’s tall frame looms over the flames. His green eyes twinkle in the firelight, made all the more striking against his dark skin.

  “The year is 1889. The setting is our lovely Vernal Falls. Now, I know you’ve all heard of the Salem witch trials, but did you know our little town had its fair share of witchcraft?”

  I nearly choke on my s’more as I burst out laughing. “Witches? Here? Please. Not in our boring old town.” Well, except for the creepy shit that’s been happening around me since I found the spell book, but that’s another conversation with a lot more alcohol.

  “Oh yeah? Well, you know Radley Pond?” he says.

  “Of course we know it, you idiot. We passed by it to get up here,” Scott says.

  Ryan raises an eyebrow. “Yes, but did you know it was named after a witch?”

  “Boo Radley’s mom?” Scott says.

  He and I burst out laughing, but Ryan and Lizzie don’t join in. They wait for us to compose ourselves, because they, like most people, don’t get our literary humor.

  Scott gestures to him. “Sorry. Continue.”

  “The witch’s name was Clarissa Radley. Legend has it, she possessed the ability to bring the dead back to life, cast spells on people she didn’t like, and heal any sick animal that found its way to her doorstep.” Ryan crouches down in front of me. “Sound like anyone we know?”

  I smirk at him and do a little witchy finger wiggle.

  He jumps up, winks at Lizzie, then parades around the fire. “She lived up in the mountains around here and kept to herself, but the rumors about her powers and what she was grew.” His eyebrows dance around. “One day, a local farmer’s son decided to pay old Clarissa a visit. He talked two fri
ends into going up to her place with him, but when they got there, she was nowhere to be found.” He mimes searching for Clarissa by bobbing his head in and out of the fire.

  “The boy wanted to test her witch ‘abilities,’ so he set the barn on fire. In his warped mind, he figured that if she really was a witch, she’d sense the blaze and put out the flames.”

  “That’s idiotic,” Scott says.

  “I didn’t say he was smart. During the fire, they waited on the hillside, but Clarissa never showed up. The barn burned to the ground, and all the animals died in it.” He stops moving, as if a statue. A heavy silence falls over the group. We wait for him to continue, but he doesn’t. He just keeps standing there, not moving, as if under a spell.

  Lizzie breaks the stillness. “What happened? Did Clarissa bring the animals back to life?”

  He shakes his head. “No, only ashes were left, but three days later the boys went completely mad. They claimed they were haunted by screaming animals. One by one, they drowned themselves in Radley Pond.”

  “What happened to Clarissa?” I whisper.

  “At first, the farmer was furious at his son for burning down the barn and killing the old woman’s animals, but after his son killed himself, he went to the local magistrate. The townspeople got together and went on an old-fashioned witch hunt with shovels and pitchforks. But Clarissa was never seen …” he sweeps his hand over the fire, almost touching the flames, “… or heard from again.” He sweeps his other hand over it.

  He crouches down and creeps around the fire, peering into our faces with his eyebrows dancing. “Some say she still stalks the countryside, crying for her dead animals. Others believe she left and went back to the old country. But no one knows for sure. She could be walking these woods as we speak … waiting … for more … young souls … to drive … mad!” He grabs Lizzie around the waist. She shrieks in surprise.

  They fall in a tangled heap, laughing and tickling each other. As much as I hate to admit it, they are kind of perfect together.